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Government Idiots Charging an Arm and a Leg for US Passports

It’s no secret that getting your passport is expensive. Hell everyone is entitled to make money, even the US Government but let’s have a look at just how much the government makes on passports:

According to a respected industry source who published these passport statistics, and by utilizing this chart of passport fees: there were 15,556,216 passports issued in 2015 of which 1,647,413 were passport cards.

Now let’s do some simple math

15,556,216 – 1,647,413 = 13,908,803 passport books

Passport Books ($110 each, assuming they were all adults and children)

* This does not include fees received for passport applications that were denied, rejected, or abandoned. Once you pay the fee to the US Government they do not give it back even if the application was rejected or denied.

* This does not include “a $60 expediting fees” paid by people that need a passport quickly either by mail or in person at one of the passport agency offices.

How much revenue does the state department need, are these fees honestly justified or are they too low?

As you can see from this small sampling, the US is not the highest nor is it the cheapest. There is certainly a very wide spread across the world in regards to passport costs. What do you think about the cost of the Passport? Is it too high or not high enough?